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What to expect in the System Center Orchestrator Beta

There have been a lot of questions and a lot of excitement about the upcoming Orchestrator Beta release, and I wanted to let you know what to expect!

The engineering team are working incredibly hard to make this release a success, and we are getting very close to making available the very first build Smile

The System Center Orchestrator Beta marks a significant milestone, indicating a move of the codebase from the Opalis subsidiary to Microsoft System Center.  This has many positive benefits, including a removal of the licensing complexity around the ‘grant’ of Opalis, greater alignment to the Microsoft Common Engineering Criteria and also things like the Support Lifecycle.

I would encourage all of you to take the new Beta for a spin, and please provide your feedback.  We will be running an evaluation program which is open to everyone.  All you need to do is sign up here and we will contact you when the program starts in June. The evaluation program will take you on a guided tour of the Orchestrator Beta, providing documentation on a variety of topics, a ready made environment if you just want to spin up quickly (although the new Installer is very quick and easy!) and regular access to the Orchestrator product team.

The table below contains some more detailed information about the system requirements and other features of Orchestrator.  The table below is designed to highlight the key changes being made for the Orchestrator release, and also any differences between the Beta and RTM.

Configuration Item

Opalis 6.3

Orchestrator Beta

Orchestrator Release

OS Support for Server components

Windows Server 2003 SP2, 2003 R2 SP2, 2008, 2008 R2

Windows 2008 R2

Windows 2008 R2

OS Support for Client components

Windows Server 2003 SP2, 2003 R2 SP2, 2008, 2008 R2

Windows XP, Vista, 7

Windows 2008 R2

Windows 7 x86 and x64

Windows 2008 R2

Windows 7 x86 and x64

Database Support for Datastore

SQL 2005, 2008

Oracle

SQL 2008 R2

(local or remote)

SQL 2008 R2

(local or remote)

System Center IPs

Existing System Center products

Existing System Center products

Existing System Center products (updated)

System Center 2012

All other IPs

(Microsoft 3rd party and community)

Functional based on the OS model they support.

Existing IP support matrix

Expect all IPs that have been remediated to support 2008 R2 to function. 

QIK based IPs should be tested and remediation may be required.

New Beta IPs expected in the Orchestrator Beta timeframe:

Active Directory, FTP, VMware vSphere and IBM Tivoli Netcool Omnibus.

All Microsoft IPs that have been remediated will support 2008 R2 and Orchestrator.

QIK based IPs should be tested and remediation may be required.

More information about IPs being updated and the release cycle to be communicated at a later date.

Export/Import from Opalis to Orchestrator

All information is exported.

Import

Encrypted data that is included in an imported runbook must be re-entered (e.g. passwords)

Runbooks not in pipeline mode will be marked “Checked Out” and require remediation.

Export

Export from Orchestrator and import to Opalis is not supported.

Import

Encrypted data is re-encrypted using the new crypto model automatically.

Runbooks not in pipeline mode will be marked “Checked Out” and require remediation.

Export

Export from Orchestrator and import to Opalis is not supported.

Web Console

Operator Console

JBOSS and OSS based

Orchestration Console

IIS and Silverlight based

Orchestration Console

IIS and Silverlight based

QIK

As per current release

No changes

New QIK features to be communicated at a later date.

Installer experience

Opalis installation experience

JBOSS and Java separate installer

New installer experience including pre-requisite installation

New installer experience including pre-requisite installation

PowerShell Provider N/A No Yes

SNMP

As per existing release

No support for SNMP v3

Updates to be communicated at a later date.

Activity changes

(foundation and legacy)

As per current release

Legacy Activities removed:

Legacy Text / File Management Activities:

Manage Text File

Create Folder (Legacy)

Delete Folder (Legacy)

Copy File (Legacy)

Delete File (Legacy)

Move File (Legacy)

Rename File (Legacy)

Get File Status (Legacy)

Monitor File (Legacy)

Monitor Folder (Legacy)

Non-Pipeline Mode Legacy Activities:

Filter Email

Process Email

Read Email

Filter Exchange Email

Process Exchange Email

Read Exchange Email

Foundation Activities used for Legacy Mode:

Wait

Infrequently Used or Obsolete:

Pager

Purge event log

Send pop-ups

Monitor Event Log Capacity

Monitor Performance

Send Popup

As per Beta.

Further changes and updates to be communicated at a later date.

Other Activity changes (per IP)

As per current release

Changes specific to each IP as it is remediated

Changes specific to each IP as it is remediated

We hope you have a great experience with the Orchestrator Beta, and we welcome your feedback!

Adam Adam Hall Senior Technical Product Manager Orchestrator white blog
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